The Agenda-Building Power of Facebook and Twitter: The Case of the 2018 Italian General Election

It is not unusual to see elections described as “turning points,” “testing grounds,” or “points of no return,” whether in relation to the outcome, its significance, or the campaign climate. One description of the 2018 general election campaign in Italy has dismissed it as “the ugliest ever” (Bobba and Seddone 2018), so there is little doubt that it was a unique event. It was unusual, first, because the electoral law denied a stable majority to either the center-right, the center-left, or the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-Star Movement, 5SM), thus creating expectations of ungovernability. Second, the contrast between the “old” and